Laurie's Surprise
by RobertDogwood
Summary: A short fan fic exploring the idea of what might have happened to Zell, Irvine and Selphie on their way home from time compression.


Laurie's Surprise

A Final Fantasy VIII Fan Fic

by RobertDogwood@aol.com

FF VIII characters and specific dialogue are owned by SquareSoft.

Original plot Copyright RobertDogwood 2001

Dedicated to Laurie

This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to actual events, places or persons, living or dead is entirely coincidental.

All that stood between Sorceress Ultimecia and her plan to totally annihilate the world with her mad scheme of time compression, which was an impossible seeming blending of past, future and present time so perfectly there would be no time left, were three teenage mercenaries with the unlikely sounding rank of SeeDs and the even more unlikely names of Squall, Zell and Selphie.

The three young warriors had been fighting the evil and demented Ultimecia for hours as she transformed herself again and again; each time into something even more revolting appearing than the previous form. They were nearing exhaustion as evidenced by the heavy lines of fatigue on their young faces and the stiff artificial way they now stood before attacking, as if standing upright was just a major chore in itself.

Their surroundings were totally ambiguous as it appeared to them they were standing somewhere in outer space with distant stars as neighbors and all they actually knew is they were sometime far in the future of their own time. As they continued to attack and be repulsed by the sorceress, they began to wonder if they were fighting a losing battle, when suddenly Ultimecia began to speak, "Reflect on your childhood - your sensation - your words - your emotions."

After Squall launched a particularly brutal attack, the sorceress intoned, "Time - it will not wait - no matter - how hard you hold on. It escapes you and-."

"Zell, shut her up, will you please?" Selphie whined. Zell, desiring to quiet Selphie as much as Ultimecia, saved his best for last and as he put the finishing touches of _ My Final Heaven _ on the sorceress, her hideously deformed body began to disintegrate and then completely blew away.

And suddenly everything appeared black to the three young SeeDs. A few minutes later or in time compression it could have been days, Irvine pulled himself to his feet, checked to reassure himself his cowboy hat was still firmly attached to his head and asked "Is it over?" The last thing he remembered was dying at the hands of Sorceress Ultimecia and now he was glancing around at a totally white environment located at the very apex of absolute time and space.

"Let's go!" Irvine exclaimed, "Let's go back to our time!"

Zell appeared to be vibrating as he ran by Irvine and he expostulated "Shut up! Just calm down and think where we have to go." Selphie, also vibrating, ran by Irvine to what would have been the east if direction had meant anything and then suddenly appeared in the south saying, "Careful, guys! Don't pick the wrong time!"

Quistis suddenly appeared as if out of nowhere or some other time and warned, "Whatever you do, don't fall into a time warp!"

* * *

The beautiful young, slim figured, woman with blonde hair stepped very quietly into the bedroom that she shared with her sister so as to not rouse the entire household. She hadn't meant to stay out this late, but she had been having such a good time she didn't want to come home. Luckily her sister was attending a sleepover or she would have had to remain up even later to recount to her sister a blow by blow account of her entire evening. Fortunately it was not only summer vacation, but the next day was Saturday and she could sleep as late as she desired.

Stifling a yawn, she unbottoned her blue jeans and slid them down over her slim hips while pleasantly remembering the evening she had just spent with close friends at a small party, although there had been one new cute guy there who seemed to pay close attention to her. "Maybe something good is gonna happen for a change" she thought, as she stepped out of her blue jeans and lay them across the bottom part of her bunk bed.

Smiling to herself, the beautiful young woman had just pulled her white blouse over her head and placed it on top of her blue jeans and stood attired only in a skimpy black bra and panties when Irvine suddenly stepped through her wall of Backstreet Boys posters and entered her bedroom.

She gave out with a small shriek and attempted to cover herself with her hands while thinking, "Now what the hell is going on here? Am I dreaming or have I finally gone completely psychotic?"

"Hush, little darling," Irvine purred. "I mean you no harm, but where exactly am I?"

The extremely attractive young woman thought, "If this is a dream, why couldn't it have been Locke? Or did somebody slip something in my drink?"

Irvine, glancing quickly around the entire bedroom and not noticing one thing that appeared familiar to him, looked back at the young beauty and suddenly became cognizant of her underdressed condition. "You sure are a pretty little filly" he said while shrugging off his long cattleman's coat and laying it with his hat on a bureau.

As he took a step toward the young beauty, she warned excitedly, "Stop right there or I'll scream." Irvine replied "You wouldn't be the first woman who I made scream." But the warning appeared to suffice, as he halted his forward progress. "At least tell me your name" Irvine entreated.

"This isn't really happening" the young woman thought. "Why should I tell you my name?" she retorted. "You're just some hallucination I'm having or some kind of nightmare."

"A nightmare? - That's pretty harsh" Irvine grinned. "I'm your dream come true and I'm gonna prove it to you right now."

Before the attractive young woman could protest further, Irvine began to unbuckle his belt and open his brown trousers. Luckily right at that exact second Selphie came striding through the wall behind him. She took the entire situation in with a single glance as she was always discovering Irvine on the verge of something similar wherever they went.

"Irvine Kinneas!" she shouted and she began to pummel him with her weapon. Irvine attempted to quickly whirl and his trousers fell to the floor revealing his pink jockey shorts. "Sefie" he cooed. "I'm so glad to see you're safe."

"Yeah, I bet" Selphie responded sarcastically. "And pull your pants up! And for Hyne's sake, what are you wearing? - pink jockey shorts?"

"These are Squall's. Mine were all dirty" Irvine explained, while readjusting his pants.

While all this was occuring the beautiful young woman decided - hallucination or nightmare notwithstanding - she would rather not be standing there in her underwear (that was a different nightmare and didn't seem to fit this scenario at all), so she quickly moved to her closet, pulled out a robe and slipped in on.

Not a second too soon as it turned out, because she once again had the full attention of Irvine and Selphie. "And you are?" Selphie questioned while stepping forward and reaching out with her right hand.

The young beauty made a quick decision to answer because she didn't care for the way Selphie had been swinging her nunchaku since entering the room. "My name is Laurie" she explained and shook Selphie's hand.

"That's a right pretty name" Irvine complimented. "My name is Irvine and this is."

"Oh, I know who you two are" Laurie interrupted. Seeing the confusion on their faces, she went on to explain "You're characters in a very popular RPG and I'm either dreaming or I'm insane."

"Well, if asked me," Selphie retorted sharply, "you're insane if you think I'm not real."

"What's a RPB?" Irvine questioned.

Stifling a laugh, Laurie explained "RPG - it stands for role playing game. You two are characters in a video game."

Irvine had been inching closer to Laurie as the conversation had progressed and he suddenly swooped down and kissed her fully on the lips. As she felt the warm flesh and the tingle of his kiss on her mouth, she suddenly felt as though she was going to pass out. "This can't be real" she thought again, but in her heart she knew it was.

Irvine stood up and glanced down at the blushing beauty. "Now - am I real?" he asked.

"How can this be happening?" Laurie wondered aloud.

Right at that exact second, Zell came stumbling through the bedroom wall and fell flat on his face on the carpeted floor directly at the young woman's feet. Laurie's heart lurched and she fell to her knees while asking "Are you alright?"

Zell glanced up into her face, but before he could formulate a response Irvine stated, "He's fine, he's as hard as a rock and dumb as a stone." Selphie gave Irvine a slight shove and warned "Don't start anything. Now is not the time."

Zell quickly regained his feet and helped Laurie off the floor. "Who are you?" he asked. Before Laurie could answer, he studied his immediate environment and demanded "Where the hell are we? Or better yet, when the hell are we?"

When the three young SeeDs looked expectedly at Laurie, she stammered, "Uh, this is 2001."

"Oh Great Hyne!" Irvine exclaimed. "This is prehistoric!"

"Prehistoric?" Laurie weakly echoed, her mind whirling.

Yes" Zell explained kindly. "We have no written records of your time period. They were destroyed in your last nuclear war which wiped out 99% of the world's population."

"Well, there's plenty of records in my computer, if you want to take a look" Laurie suggested.

"Oh no!" Irvine retorted. "You're not turning this into one of those time paradox things where we find a way in the past to defeat Ultimecia but it's after we already did it - so which came first? Or do we have to do it in an endless cycle?"

Wondering again if she had gone completely insane, Laurie couldn't help but ask Zell, "What time are you all from?"

"Well" Zell went on to explain, "we don't measure time the identical way you do, but I'd say we're from around a thousand years from now."

"Oh, Super-Duper-Mega-Bummer!" Selphie whined. "Do we have to stay here? I wanna go home. I'm tired and I'm filthy and I wanna take a shower."

Being a kind person, Laurie instinctively spoke "We have a shower you can use" before stopping to consider the ramifications of her family waking up and discovering Selphie taking a shower in their bathroom. Irvine quipped, "Come on, Sefie. I'll lather you up."

Ignoring his blatant sexual come-on, Selphie stepped forward and said to Zell in a supercilous tone "This young lady says we're not real and that we're only characters in some kind of game."

"What the hell?!" Zell questioned.

Feeling extremely frustrated at this point, Laurie quickly crossed the room and pulled the box that held the Final Fantasy VIII game off the lower shelf and thrust it roughly into Selphie's hands. "Here" she said. "This proves it."

"Holy Shiva!" Selphie exclaimed. "Look at this! It's Squall, Rinoa and Seifer." As Zell and Irvine quickly gathered around her, Irvine complained "Why am I always the one left out?"

"But how is this possible?" Selphie weakly asked, her entire reality being momentarily threatened.

"I'd say it was some kinda leakage from time compression and Ellone's influence" Zell explained. "In some weird way our reality became trapped in this game."

"But how are we gonna get home?" Selphie whined again.

"It's simple" Zell explained. "We're just going to walk back through that wall."

Laurie looked at him in total disbelief. "What do you think this is?" she demanded. "The Wizard of Oz?"

Before Zell could answer the young beauty's sarcastic response, Irvine questioned "What's this Lizard of Poz?"

"I said Wizard of Oz!" Laurie answered in an angry tone. "Are you deaf? You're not hard of hearing in the game."

Irvine flushed slightly and responded "It's because I'm a sniper and always having the loud retort of my weapon ringing in my ears."

"No, it isn't" Selphie contradicted. "He does it for attention so ignore him." Turning to Zell, Selphie asked "So what are we going to do?"

"We're going back through the wall." And so saying, Zell turned and quickly stepped into the wall and disappeared.

Selphie turned to the startled Laurie and explained "We'll be going now. We're sorry to have bothered you." And she too turned and disappeared into the wall.

Before Laurie could respond, Irvine leaned down once again and pressed his lips against her's in a long lingering kiss, slipping his tongue slightly into her startled mouth. Standing up, Irvine said "Good bye little darling. I'm sorry I couldn't have stayed to get to know you better." And he ran through the wall in his loping manner, his ponytail flying behind him.

It was then Laurie noticed Irvine had left his hat and coat on her bureau. Walking across the room slowly in a daze, she momentarily picked them up. "They certainly feel real enough," she thought. Laying the clothing back down, she snapped off the room light and climbed wearily to the top bunk. Slipping beneath the covers before almost immediately falling asleep, she thought to herself, "No one is ever going to believe this!"

The End 


End file.
